A Loving Missive
by froomiest bandersnatch
Summary: A letter is written...


A Loving Missive

Disclaimer: I own absolutly nothing...however much I wish to.

A handsome man sat his ornate writing desk, turning an expensive black fountain pen between his long, slender fingers. He was hunched over his desk, his white shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows which stood at a right angle on the wooden flat surface in front of him. His hair stood on end, as if run through with agitated fingers out of frustration.

In front of him, through an open window, the busy streets of Cairo were teaming with all sorts of people. Thin, brown Egyptian men, wearing ragged galabeeyahs and dirty turbans. Muslim women huddled together, their black robes swirling around them, forming one large, amorphous shape. Buyers and sellers, native and foreign; everyone came to Cairo.

He tore his eyes away from the window. Then he closed the shutters, muffling the inevitable sounds of the city. He focused his eyes then on the sheet of innocent, blank white paper, lying sublimely on the desk in front of him.

'If it weren't for her damn husband,' he thought bitterly, 'I wouldn't be in this damn predicament!' Nothing had gone the way he had wanted; nothing had gone according to plan. The woman he loved more than anything had slipped through his loving grasp just several days before, rescued by her courageous husband. A bloody fight had ensued, which he had lost. Sethos loathed losing.

'It just goes to show that you shouldn't covet your neighbor's wife.' He smiled briefly, but the smile promptly vanished and his heart sunk even lower than he could have ever imagined, into the wells of horrid despair. If that bullheaded Emerson hadn't shown up to save the day (or ruin his life, in Sethos's case), the Master Criminal would have gotten away with the perfect prize from an especially tricky swindle. Then inspiration cuffed him around the ears. He began to write.

_"You might have redeemed me." _

She had certainly redeemed others. She seemed to make it a habit and rescue the black sheep, cast out from everyone else. She'd lecture them, clean them up, and propel them forcefully back to where she had plucked them. They were forever grateful for her intercession and her kind, yet exceedingly long words of wisdom echoed in their ears for years to come.

_"From this time on, when the unhappy world reels under the miseries of the blows I will deal it, remember that its suffering is on your head."_

If their fingers had only touched…then, then he would have been sure. Sure that however unwillingly or strangely, she was attracted to him as well. With so much in common with each other, how could she not? She was intrigued, for certain. During their delightful discussion her brilliant grey eyes had sparkled, her mouth had formed easy, beautiful smiles…surely it was not possible for the abducted to converse so amiably with their captor? However, with Amelia, one could never be completely certain. Conversation with her was so entrancing though…

_"My Amelia – my beloved,"_

His feelings for her were so impossible to describe. There would never be a day when he could not delight in just watching her, listening to her. He loved the way she was so blunt, her unmatched wit, her undaunted courage, her nonconformity…

A loud clunk echoed around the room, as his pen dropped with a thud on the desk. He put his face in his hands and pressed his fingertips to his temples with so much force that they turned white. He let out one long ragged breath and took his hands away from his face. Picking up his discarded pen, he went back to his letter.

_"Henceforth, you and yours are safe from my avenging hand."_

'Even that child of hers, Ramses,' he chuckled to himself. 'At the rate he's going, he doesn't need anyone to try and kill him. It will just happen.' He sobered his thoughts. Anything that was precious to Amelia, he would not touch. That meant her precocious son, her wily husband, and even those damned donkeys she insisted on caring for.

_"You may refrain from assaulting elderly ladies whom you suspect of being Sethos in disguise; you may leave un-plucked the luxuriant beards of suspicious gentlemen."_

The funny thing about Amelia she would do any of the actions he had just inscribed. She would plunge face first into danger, if only to prove a point or solve a crime. She would rush into Dante's Inferno, fiendishly waving around her parasol if she had a bone to pick with Lucifer. And if anyone she loved was ever in danger, she would stick out her neck for them in an instant and then proceed to pepper her enemies with bullets from her tiny little pistol.

_"You will see me no more. I am leaving Egypt forever."_

Well, that part was not entirely true. He would skulk into the shadows for a few years in order to get himself of Amelia's criminal radar.

_"Think of me sometimes Amelia, as I will think constantly of you. What could we not have achieved together!"_

He put down his pen and slumped in his chair. He closed his tired eyes, but her image burned the inside of his eyelids.

'It would be nice,' Sethos thought miserably, 'to take a break.'


End file.
